Seeing the North Korean Stalemate From the Other Side

North Koreans gathered in September to celebrate their nuclear scientists.CreditCreditKim Won-Jin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Pyongyang, North Korea — North Korea’s capital city is awash in propaganda. Posters depicting missiles, some striking the United States Capitol, hang along major streets. In recent days, a million civilians, including high school students, factory workers and older men who long ago completed their military service, have signed up at the government’s request to fight the United States, if needed.

“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is on the eve of the breakout of nuclear war,” Choe Kang-il, a senior Foreign Ministry official told me and three Times colleagues during a visit last week. Does that mean war is inevitable? “I think it depends on the attitude of the United States,” he replied.

There is no sign of any unusual military mobilization in Pyongyang or along the perpetually tense border with South Korea to suggest imminent conflict. American, North Korean and South Korean soldiers stand duty as usual at the demilitarized zone separating the sides since the 1950-53 Korean War, and tourists, as well as journalists like us, still visit there.

Yet as Washington and Pyongyang confront each other over the North’s advancing nuclear weapons capability, the warlike rhetoric is escalating and, with it, the risk of conflict. After four days in North Korea, I am not at all sure that this standoff will end well.

It was unsettling to hear ordinary North Koreans talk of war with calm acceptance and buy their government’s propaganda happy talk about certain victory over the United States. We also heard some people say that while they hate the American government, they harbor no ill will toward Americans and would prefer to live in peace. One woman was nearly in tears describing her mixed feelings about the United States.

I have been writing about North Korea since 1992, when President George H. W. Bush’s administration held the United States’ first meeting with Pyongyang since the Korean War to discuss what was then an incipient nuclear program. I had long wanted to visit. What made it possible now is that North Korea, the world’s least transparent country, has decided to embark on a charm offensive, inviting major American news organizations on separate visits this year to learn more about its economic and political goals.

Our trip has not been without some risk, given the way the American student Otto Warmbier, who was detained in Pyongyang after allegedly trying to steal a poster, fell into a coma under circumstances that remain mysterious and died days after being returned to the United States. While I and the other Times journalists were invited by the Foreign Ministry (The Times paid all expenses), the diplomats don’t control the security services, and our attempts to report have been a balance between trying to get the most authentic information we can (a struggle) and not running afoul of security. Two government minders accompanied us except when we were in our rooms.

We were allowed to visit a silk factory, the science and technology complex (computers are connected to an internal intranet, not the internet), an elite high school and an anti-American war museum, as well as an amusement park, restaurants and a dolphinarium — evidence of Kim Jong-un’s efforts to allow citizens of Pyongyang, where the elite live, opportunities for fun. Our requests to see the three remaining American detainees were refused. Despite such controls, there have been some moments of spontaneous humanity. After dinner one night, a senior official led me briefly in ballroom dancing on the sidewalk outside a restaurant.

I most wanted to learn whether the North Koreans were open to nuclear talks with the United States and what it might take to get a deal. In the 1990s, the two sides reached an agreement that froze the North’s plutonium program for eight years and made progress on missile limits. But these initiatives fell apart in the George W. Bush administration, and today North Korea has at least 20 nuclear weapons and missiles that may soon be able to reach the continental United States, a level of technological prowess that Mr. Trump has said he won’t tolerate.

In Mr. Choe’s telling, North Korea was driven to become a nuclear power in self-defense against America’s “nuclear blackmail,” sanctions, history of confrontation, and affront to the sovereignty and dignity of the state. The North must establish “a balance of power” to hold Washington at bay, finally replace the Korean War armistice with a permanent peace treaty and focus attention on economic development, he said. Therein seemed to be the answer to my question of whether and under what circumstances the North would be open to talks. Only when Washington makes a “bold decision” to end its military exercises with South Korea, halt sanctions and cease moves that diplomatically isolate North Korea can a dialogue between the two countries bear fruit, he added.

Our interviews have persuaded me that it is also imperative for Washington to ease up on the rhetoric. Mr. Trump’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month crossed a line for many North Koreans because it made the fight deeply personal, disparaging Mr. Kim as “rocket man” and threatening to “totally destroy North Korea,” a country of 26 million people.

The Trump administration insists there can be no talks until the North halts missile and nuclear tests for an unspecified period. Hence, stalemate, and a dangerous one. Allowing the shouting match and muscle-flexing on both sides to gather momentum can come to no good.